About GeoTools 10.x Series

Summary of the new features for the GeoTools 10.x series:

Structured grid coverage readers allow raster data sources that publish composite data products to expose individual rasters (ie granules) for processing, while still providing a seamless experience for rendering. The mosaic and NetCDF modules are the first ones to implement these new interfaces.

Efficient support for multiple coverages in GridCoverageReader provides ad-hoc access to raster formats that publish more that one data product. A image mosaic made of NetCDF granules and single file NetCDF sources are the first implementors of these new capabilities

A new implementation of Shapefile DataStore (based on ContentDataStore superclass). This upgrade should be seamless for all users using DataStoreFactoryFinder. If you explicitly made use of the ShapefileDataStore or IndexedShapefileDataStore class please check the upgrade instructions.

The transform module graduated to supported status, providing a seamless way to rename, retype and hide SimpleFeatureSource attributes, as well as creating new ones based on OGC Expression

Additional OGC modules for the WCS 2.0 and WCS 2.0 EO models as well as adding XML parsers and encoders

The 10.x series has a number of research and development activities that may be of interest:

NetCDF has been updated to take advantage of the new coverage API introduced above

GeoPackage: a sample implementation of the geopackage spec that is currently being developed by the OGC

While exciting, this functionally is looking for volunteers and/or funding to meet our quality assurance standards. If you are interested please introduce yourself on geotools-devel (or check out options for commercial support).

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

There we go, a blog title designed to scare away all but the most dedicated blog readers.

GeoTools Review Status update

After several weeks of email, and a couple days of fixing, I am in the clear to make a GeoTools 9.0-M1 release. Basically the IP review discussion we have been having with LocationTech is complete for GeoTools.

Only the subset of GeoTools that is used by uDig was reviewed, and there are still many dependencies left to be contacted. But GeoTools is by far the largest stepping stone.

Thanks to all the project leads who will be (or have already been) contacted. We really appreciate you taking the time to answer a few questions.

Wait Didn't OSGeo do this Already?

GeoTools has gone through the OSGeo Incubation Process, and has an extensive Code Provenance Review.
This review was focused on minimising the risk to the OSGeo Foundation by taking on GeoTools as a project. Some risks the foundation is comfortable with, ie listing all known problems, are not necessarly sufficient for all users (who would like to see known problems fixed).
The OSGeo Foundation does not require projects fix all issues in order to give interested parties a chance to fix (or fund) the work.

Why this is Cool

So why is this cool? The thing is these intellectual property reviews happen all the time, but behind closed doors. If we are really lucky us open source projects get told about the result, or a few private emails with questions.
And if an IP review fails, it fails quietly and we never hear anything again. Indeed if we ask what happened often the organisation conducting the review is forbidden to talk to us about it (for fear of the conversation being taken as advice).
Contrast this with recent developments:

If you are working with a projects that uses GeoTools please take a moment to try out GeoTools-10-RC2. This is your chance to check for any regressions or integration issues prior to the stable 10.0 release.

Thanks to Jody Garnett and OpenGeo for issuing this release.

About GeoTools 10.x Series

Summary of the new features for the GeoTools 10.x series:

Structured grid coverage readers allow raster data sources that publish composite data products to expose individual rasters (ie granules) for processing, while still providing a seamless experience for rendering. The mosaic and NetCDF modules are the first ones to implement these new interfaces.

Efficient support for multiple coverages in GridCoverageReader provides ad-hoc access to raster formats that publish more that one data product. A image mosaic made of NetCDF granules and single file NetCDF sources are the first implementors of these new capabilities

A new implementation of Shapefile DataStore (based on ContentDataStore superclass). This upgrade should be seamless for all users using DataStoreFactoryFinder. If you explicitly made use of the ShapefileDataStore or IndexedShapefileDataStore class please check the upgrade instructions.

The transform module graduated to supported status, providing a seamless way to rename, retype and hide SimpleFeatureSource attributes, as well as creating new ones based on OGC Expression

Additional OGC modules for the WCS 2.0 and WCS 2.0 EO models as well as adding XML parsers and encoders

The 10.x series has a number of research and development activities that may be of interest:

NetCDF has been updated to take advantage of the new coverage API introduced above

GeoPackage: a sample implementation of the geopackage spec that is currently being developed by the OGC

While exciting, this functionally is looking for volunteers and/or funding to meet our quality assurance standards. If you are interested please introduce yourself on geotools-devel (or check out options for commercial support).